


A Thwarted Deception

by sharkie



Series: Amelia and Victoria’s London [3]
Category: Fallen London | Echo Bazaar
Genre: Exhibitionism, F/F, Soul Extraction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-30
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2019-07-18 22:54:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16128425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sharkie/pseuds/sharkie
Summary: One man's mistake is two women's pleasure.





	A Thwarted Deception

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ImprobableIntellect](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImprobableIntellect/gifts).



> Victoria belongs to ImprobableIntellect. The premise was also his idea!

The extraction room had been prepared several hours in advance. Victoria stood on the fully furnished stage, hands on her hips as she surveyed her surroundings. The red velvet chaise was already pristine following the previous night's 'seduction'. The chairs flanking the chaise usually served as props, so they were spotless as well. On a long table, empty jars had been laid out in a neat row, ending in a bowl full of corks; gilded boxes concealed additional implements and anachronistic toys.

Victoria's inspection was interrupted by frantic knocking on one of the side doors. With no servants onstage with her, she opened it by herself. Oh - it was a regular, escorted by a Salon servant. This woman was too plain-looking to have the pleasure of a 'seduction', but she paid well to watch and occasionally brought interested female friends. Victoria supposed she could tolerate her presence.

"Hello, there," said Victoria.

The woman, however, was too frazzled to respond to niceties. "Is it true?" she demanded, breathless. The servant urged calm and was soundly ignored. "Did you really accept..." Her voice lowered, as one would lower one's voice while talking about the Salon in Southwark Cathedral. "A _man?!_ "

Victoria scoffed. "I have no recollection of violating one of my strictest policies, no."

"Then why is there a human man in the drawing room, claiming that he successfully booked an appointment and waving his contract around as proof?"

The woman had barely ended her sentence before Victoria was sweeping out of the room, pulling on her coat as she went. Her stilettos tapped smartly against the floor as she headed to the drawing room. It was a busy night, by the Salon's standards; she could hear the clamour from a good distance away. While Victoria had never been particularly adept at recognising humans' tones, she sensed they were more excited than usual, judging by the sudden swell of continuous noise. She brushed past another concerned servant and paused to peer round the doorway.

Sure enough, a human stood at the centre of the room, bragging at full volume - emphasising his forbidden _maleness,_ of all things, attempting to pander to the men in the audience. Immediately, his wealth was clear: he wore a fine suit with a silk tie, black shoes polished to an obnoxious degree of brightness, facial hair fashionable for this era, last she checked.

Victoria cleared her throat. All heads swivelled at her unhurried entrance. An expectant hush descended upon every guest except the interloper, if only for a second; the small crowd parted as she approached the man. He kept blathering, kept gesticulating, but a slight tremble revealed his intimidation.

The deviless stopped in front of him. She snatched the paper from his hands without a word, without making contact with his skin. Her eyes narrowed - the contract had already been signed. A thorough inspection confirmed that the contract itself hadn't been forged, and she could detect nothing questionable in its terms.

It was tempting to rip out his soul and eject him straightaway. After all, she had the contract. An unexpected soul delivery might please the Embassy for a few days. But Victoria took the moment to assess him and the situation. He stood at a practiced ease - tall, but shorter than Victoria. She'd assumed that his mouth was one of the unfortunate types that always appeared to be twisted into a smirk, but evidently it could grow more impetuous, more leering. Much more importantly, many audience members eyed him with too little disgust for her taste, curious and excited and - dare she consider it, _distracted?_ From _her?_ When a familiar-looking lady whispered to her female companion, and they exchanged a giggle, a lick of heat stirred in Victoria's stomach. It was similar to arousal but vaguely feral.

It was then that Victoria noticed the young woman standing beside the man, unnoticed by his audience; she identified her simple attire as a maid's, and her body as lithe beneath it. The woman's features were delicate, a sweet, girlish face that Victoria could easily imagine framed with the dark curls currently wound into a bun atop her head. And she didn't watch her employer with the same fascination as the crowd. Honestly, she seemed bored. The realisation was almost as amusing as it was enticing.

A Salon servant happened to point at the object of Victoria's attention. "That's the woman who booked the appointment!" they exclaimed. "She, uh, convinced us to let her bring the unsigned contract home." No wonder she'd been able to convince a Salon servant to accommodate her request; Victoria had instructed the Salon's staff to value such women as she did.

Victoria's golden gaze flickered to the man, who flinched from its intensity. Murmurs abounded.

"Why did you bring your maid with you?" she questioned - her first words to him thus far, uttered with thinly veiled contempt.

He started to shrink away from her critical stare, but offered no further deference. "Oh, to prove a point, of course. She said you wouldn't do it, no matter how much I paid or how much of a show we put on. Can you imagine?"

With a laugh, he turned back to the audience, not realising that its members had quietened considerably while shooting uncertain glances at Victoria. A stoic servant provided the man's name, which matched the signature on the contract. Several audience members could apparently confirm that the name was real. Victoria didn't care what it was. Only the most exceptional human women warranted occupying that space in her long, long memory.

A plan took shape. "Let's go to the extraction room," said Victoria, voice low with calm menace.

The crowd fell silent again, and followed in an orderly fashion. The deviless purposefully walked with wider strides than usual so that the man would fail to match her pace.

Inside the amphitheatre, the lamps had been dimmed, save those dotting the stage's perimeter. As soon as the doors slammed shut, Victoria faced the humans. Her gaze landed directly on the maid, simmered as it sank and smoked with desire. At the corner of her vision, Victoria noticed her employer fidgeting.

"Come with me," Victoria commanded.

The maid's breath caught; her expression was inscrutable as she climbed onstage, her employer naturally in tow. Maxwell watched warily as they passed.

At the centre of the stage, Victoria addressed the maid again: "You're the one who booked the appointment?" The maid held Victoria's stare with admirable steeliness and nodded. "There seems to have been a clerical error, sweetling _._ I'll need you to sign again."

Victoria always kept a stack of unsigned contracts on a table in the extraction room; she grabbed one and a pen and handed it to the maid. It wasn't a command. But the intent was clear. Simultaneously resigned and resolute, the maid scribbled her own name and handed the contract over.

The deviless tucked the contract into her coat. Then she shucked her coat onto the rug, revealing what she wore underneath: a ruffled black dress that left her shoulders bare, with a neckline that would instantly make a temperance campaigner meet the Boatman and a hemline that would send them back upon revival.

"Well..." Victoria addressed the maid by name, very possibly butchering its pronunciation. "I'm delighted to meet you, but we have a teensy-tiny problem. You tried to help your employer deceive me." Gasps resounded throughout the room - audiences never failed to react to twists appropriately, if not excitingly. "Under pain of dismissal, I imagine. How sad. See, dear, I wouldn't touch a man even to kill a fly." Victoria's fangs flashed, as did her golden eyes. "However, I am willing to offer you a special deal, provided that your employer can sit down and shut up for what I imagine will be the first time in his miserable life."

The maid looked slightly more intrigued than terrified. The man, who had lost the audience's attention, began to protest.

"You can't run a business like this! What right do you have to deny service to customers who've already paid - "

"I'm not denying service." Victoria's eyes stayed trained on the blushing woman. "I'm going to fuck your maid."

"As if a common servant could appreciate some glorified whorehouse!"

Victoria whipped around to face him, fangs bared. " _This isn't even a brothel._ It's an exceptionally specific service. I don't provide mere gratification. I guarantee a game. I free humans from their pesky souls through _pleasurable spiritefage,_ neither artless extraction nor dull sex. And since I possess your contract, I'd reconsider your position here."

"If this is how you treat well-paying customers, I'd reconsider your position - "

Two servants stepped forward and pulled his arms behind his back.

"The rope," Victoria instructed.

Normally, she bound clients on her own if she thought it would enrich the experience, but she didn't want to touch this one. Another Salon attendant retrieved a rope from a nearby table and tightly wound it around the man's wrists, binding them together. Victoria nodded towards the least comfortable chair onstage. The servants shoved the man onto it.

He sputtered. "Listen, here - "

"No," Victoria said, icier than anyone could expect from a devil. " _You_ listen. You wish to discuss appreciation? This is the only time you’ll see a woman satisfied."

Later tonight, the parlour would be rife with speculation. Perhaps it was some unknown demonic enthrallment. Perhaps it was the same stupidity that led him here. Regardless of why, regardless of the worried murmur that rippled throughout the room, the silly man stayed put, looking ready to speak again though he likely lacked the words.

Victoria caught the maid's gaze and gestured for her to recline on the chaise. She swallowed and obeyed, not bothering to arrange her skirt properly as she laid down. The crowd gasped at her indecency. Meanwhile, Victoria flicked each of the straps holding up her dress, letting them slide from her shoulders; they slid further down with each step that she took towards the chaise, until a final shrug caused her dress to land on the rug.

The brass piercings on her nipples, navel, and clit glittered in the dancing candlelight. Her long tongue protruded, flashing identical piercings. Two strips of silk supported her ample breasts without covering them. Thin black straps criss-crossed her body from her stomach down to her groin, meeting at a sheer fabric covering her pussy - more for show than practicality, since an opening exposed her cunt. She made a full turn, flaunting the spirifer's fork tucked into a string of her thong, reveling in the ooh's and aah's from the audience.

Swiftly straddling the maid's lap, Victoria unbuttoned and removed her blouse and tossed it aside. It almost hit the man in the face. She loosened the laces of maid's cheap corset so she could tug at the flimsy chemise beneath. Both nearly tore from Victoria's haste, yet her movements were controlled, and the garments were soon shed without issue. She pulled down the maid's stockings, slower, and moved on to her drawers with the same agonising speed. The heat radiating off the human's increasingly naked body was chilly compared to Victoria's quickening breath. Off came the maid's drawers; the deviless examined them disdainfully, then cast them aside as well.

"Let's play a game," Victoria declared, undoing the maid's bun. Long, unkempt hair tumbled past her shoulders, and Victoria smirked at the scandalised gasps. Violant-painted fingernails skimmed over the maid's sides. "I'll take your soul. If you can bring me off afterwards, you can have it back."

The maid whimpered her agreement.

Several chairs screeched forward in sync as the audience leaned closer in anticipation, followed by a much smaller round of screeching. (Peer pressure.) The poor girl's thighs were trembling more than her lips. Victoria pried both apart in rapid succession: first her hands firm on her kneecaps, then her long tongue invading her mouth and tracing everything inside with the piercings. The combination of scorching, soft, and sharp sensations made the girl gasp; she wanted to throw her arm over her eyes, but Victoria caught her wrist, eliciting a whine as the sweet reality of the situation began to sink in.

As her hand crept lower on the maid's stomach, Victoria turned her head to eye the man squirming in the chair. His eyes were glazed; a prominent bulge now tented the front of his trousers. She decided against drawing the audience's attention to it. Oblivious to her employer's state, the maid licked her lips as Victoria positioned herself between her spread legs and rested her bare crotch over hers. Each moment without further action eroded whatever propriety the girl still possessed.

"This might tickle a bit," said Victoria, referring to the warm piercing over her swollen pearl. "Consider it practice for later."

Victoria braced her hands against the raised portion of the chaise, rocking forward and grinding her cunt against the maid's groin, occasionally swivelling her hips. A litany of moans fell from the maid's lips. Smirking, the deviless lowered a hand to tease the skin around her piercing. She avoided prematurely gratifying the human, yet took care not to hurt her - she kept the sensation just the barest brush away from pain, the threat to overwhelm more powerful than the act itself.

Pleasure steadily built from the sight and sound and scent of the debauched woman lying open-mouthed beneath her, plus an extra buzz from the thrill of exhibitionism. Admittedly, Victoria had considered that she might someday grow numb to her hobby, as she'd grown numb to the idea of ordinary Abstractions. But tonight eased those worries: she was spurred by the low chatter of the crowd, invigorated by the knowledge of a man's denial as she sought her release against the woman he'd brought to her.

"Well?" said Victoria, without much serious reproach. "Don't make me do all the work."

The maid regained her senses and strained to sit upright so she could suckle on Victoria's sensitised nipples. A purr of approval encouraged her to experiment, alternating between messily sucking and delicately licking the hardened nubs, occasionally encircling the areola with the flat of her tongue. Then she slurped around a piercing; a surprised moan at its warmth was muffled by Victoria’s flesh before the girl traced the brass with reverence. Victoria began to command her to use her hands; the maid pinched one nipple between her callused thumb and index finger while she continued to lave the other.

Some devils' bodies produced in excess, in an attempt to better mimic human functions. Victoria was one of those lucky devils. She shifted and lowered a hand to easily slide her fingers into her pussy, where they crooked in a parody of finding that perfect spot on a human. She pumped them in time with her thrusts and the drag of the maid's tongue. Her wetness dripped onto the maid's thigh and sizzled - not enough to burn, but jolting her nonetheless, causing the girl's tongue to slip in one broad stroke. Tsking, Victoria withdrew her fingers so she could resume rutting against the maid's crotch. Eager to make amends, the maid latched her lips around Victoria's sopping digits with a mewl and sucked until she needed to gasp for air.

That earnestness caused the dam of ecstasy to break and wash over Victoria. Her orgasms were far superior to the short-lived writhing of mortals, as enjoyable as that was to watch: a rush of triumph always complemented her physical release, flooding every corner of a finely-crafted vessel. She focused on the woman, eyes narrowed into pleasured slits as she moaned in deep, deliberate bursts. In time, the last ripples of crisis faded into a full-body tingling that could be called 'heavenly' if only that didn't sound so crude.

Victoria cupped the maid's cheek with sticky fingers.

"Clumsy work, my dear." She grinned at the whine she received in response. "You're fortunate that you're pretty. It makes sloppiness entertaining rather than merely annoying," she added, with a pointed glance in the man's direction. "And now it's your turn. Lie back."

When the maid faltered, Victoria sighed and pushed her down herself, looming over her. Another glance revealed that the maid's employer was red-faced and sweating profusely. Occasionally, audience members glanced at him, too, but their attention always returned to the chaise.

Victoria breathed directly into the maid's ear, so the rest of the room wouldn't hear: "I won't start until they're all looking. Decide whether to beg them, or me."

The maid begged her.

Victoria smiled and slithered down the maid's body, withdrawing the spirifer's fork. "Good choice. Do you consent?"

The maid agreed in a voice high-pitched and strained from desperation. The fork's prongs traced her collarbones, down her cleavage, down her navel to her crotch, where it slid through Victoria's earlier spending. A shiver escaped the maid; laughter rang out above her, and the prongs were replaced by Victoria's fingers darting downwards. Two rubbed her engorged clit in quick circles while Victoria brought the fork to the maid's wrist.

"Let me know when I hit the right spot, sweetling," said Victoria, knowing full well that she had flawless aim.

A finger slipped inside the maid's cunt; she was soaked, allowing her to add a second with little resistance. Victoria explored in small, slow strokes, occasionally withdrawing a finger to smear fluid into the maid's flesh, marking her with the evidence of her own desire. The maid's moans and gasps grew in frequency and volume, yet they were barely louder than the continuous hum of contentment that the deviless emitted as she delved deeper into her wet heat. Finally, Victoria stilled, buried to the knuckles. Her fingers curled.

Her precision had been unexpected. The maid wailed - the loudest Victoria could remember in recent appointments - and thrashed as orgasm overtook her, her hips pistoning in search of more pressure and rewarded with maddening control that only served to heighten her pleasure.

Prongs lifted, briefly, then jabbed the maid's wrist. A second later, Victoria slowly pulled the fork away. A twirl of her hand, and a green wisp drifted outwards. As it disappeared into the prongs, the maid's gaze dulled, dark rings forming under her eyes. _S_ _omething_ about her seemed blunted. If you asked a human to pinpoint the change, even the most avid of Victoria's guests would be at a loss for words. If you asked a devil, they'd say that it's impossible to describe art. Though they probably wouldn't have a kind view on how Victoria did it.

Victoria waited for the crowd's excitement to ebb along with the maid's crisis, lazily swinging the fork back and forth before tucking it into her thong. Then she licked the juice off her fingers. The maid struggled to keep her eyes open. But the viric streak in Victoria's hair went undisturbed. The maid rested a tentative hand on Victoria's hip; it became bolder, urging her down, to fully straddle her hips. This time, she thrust to meet Victoria's grinding - at one point, the deviless commanded her to stay still so she could gently rub her piercing near the maid's own clit.

They cried out and rocked against each other until they'd grown hoarse and the air surrounding the chaise was clammy with hot arousal. The maid's tongue returned to Victoria's puffy nipples, to lick the surprisingly sweet-tasting sweat from her cleavage. Soon, Victoria's cunt spasmed, and she rode out another orgasm against the maid's thigh, coating it in a fresh gush of spend.

"Good girl," purred Victoria. She made no move to stand. With one hand, she traced nonsense patterns over the maid's neck. The other gathered the dampness streaked on the maid's thighs as it crept towards her sore cunt.

"Do you want me to keep your soul?" asked Victoria, tweaking the maid's clit.

The maid hesitated - either from genuine contemplation or the sluggishness that the start of soulessness often entailed - then shook her head. Victoria sighed in exaggerated disappointment and withdrew the fork once again. She twirled it, and a green wisp drifted from the prongs, into the deviless' mouth.

Victoria held the soul there until she descended upon the maid once again. The tips of her tiny fangs poked the human's lower lip as she coaxed it to drop. Her tongue insinuated itself, slipping inside as Victoria captured her mouth in a long and audibly messy kiss. As it deepened, the maid's skin glowed with renewed vitality; her eyes gradually re-lit to a 'normal' state until the dark circles had vanished. Boring, but not unpleasant to look at - especially not as Victoria worked her fingers into her and reacquainted herself with the special spot at her core, frigging her to another loud crisis.

The maid fought to regain her breath. Victoria lowered her fingers to her own quim once more, eyes peeled on the rapid rise and fall of the human's chest. Within less than a minute, the deviless moaned and shuddered, forgetting to blink or breathe as she was wracked by her final orgasm. For the hour, anyway.

Victoria stood, panting, for show rather than out of necessity. Satisfied that the soul had returned, she retrieved her coat, leaving her dress on the floor. She handed the contract back to the maid. The human accepted it with shaking fingers, flipped it over and back again, studying the terms for any hidden clause and finding none.

The crowd's murmurs reminded Victoria of her deceitful employer's existence. She whirled to face him, brandishing the fork; her stilettos were muffled by the rug, but that didn't make her tread any less ominous. In fact, the impending sense of doom didn't cease when she halted by his side.

"Contract aside, you might as well let me take it." Victoria shrugged. "Perhaps you'll feel less humiliated afterwards."

The man didn't struggle as she snatched his wrist. She smiled. With fangs. Prongs sank into flesh.

Usually, Victoria delighted in how a female client's expression would involuntarily contort at the moment of climax, identical to agony yet without despair; how that expression would soften during the extraction and slacken afterwards. She rarely had the opportunity to appreciate the malaise of extraction itself, so occupied with her clients' sexual exhaustion, bless mortals' limited stamina. She twisted the fork like one would twist a knife buried in an enemy's back - the motion made the soul jerk midway through its departure, breaking what would otherwise be a graceful sight. A special subset of her patrons watched solely for the extraction. Unfortunately for any present in this crowd, this one resembled a routine Bazaar transaction, except for the fact that most Bazaar bank tellers only sneer on the inside.

The last of the wisp disappeared into the prongs. The man blinked at Victoria with hollow, haunted eyes. And at some point, he'd lost his erection. Now what? She considered the viric trick, then settled for curtly commanding one of the servants to bonk him on the head, knocking him out.

The deviless sauntered to her workstation. There, she dispassionately angled the fork and deposited the soul into an unremarkable jar, which she corked. She tucked the fork back into her thong - both were now warm from a bad job well done. She turned to her stunned audience and the woman on the chaise, without a second glance at her new acquisition nor its unconscious provider.

The maid had begun to rise on visibly shaky feet, hazy-eyed, her skin pink and shiny with sweat. But something stopped her ascent. Every corner of the room fell silent as everyone noticed Victoria's hand atop her head. The young woman stilled under the return of the deviless' touch, unsure whether to keen or cower.

"My dear," Victoria cooed, "how would you like a job?"


End file.
